


Anne of Queen’s College

by ottermo



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant to AWAE, F/M, Fake Dating AU - with a twist, Period-Typical Homophobia, Queen’s Era, featuring characters from AOGG
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25210489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: Drawing greatly upon her capacity as an actress, and a little upon old habits, Anne wrinkled her nose. “Oh, no. Gilbert? No, that’s quite over with.”To protect Cole’s budding new relationship, Anne spreads a rumour that she’s courting her handsome college classmate, Roy Gardner. But it’s alright: she’s warned Gilbert in advance.Or at least, she thinks she has...
Relationships: Cole Mackenzie & Anne Shirley, Cole Mackenzie/Royal Gardner, Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 86
Kudos: 267





	1. as if sent from on high

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I’m quite excited about this, because I never ever write multi-chapter things these days, but this is actually... not a oneshot! It’s not even a collection of oneshots, it’s an actual plot! So while I’m very aware that it’s a bit silly, I’m marking it down as an achievement. 
> 
> Warnings for period-typical homophobia, but it’s almost entirely feared by the characters rather than experienced. If that makes sense. 
> 
> The title may change, but for the moment, I’m keeping the name my working document had. I’ve become rather attached to it, although it’s a little flavourless. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! <3

Anne gazed out of the window of Charlotte's Café, smiling contentedly to herself. Everything was going just about as nicely as it could at Queen's College – her classes were lively and interesting, the professors dedicated and fellow scholars keen to push one another to great heights. And one such fellow scholar was a particular blessing, she thought now, with a widening of her smile.

Not long after the start of term, Cole had announced that he would be attending classes at Queen’s two days a week, in conjunction with his course at art school. Queen’s College had an art history professor who was one of the highest-regarded in all Canada, and the art school had tried and failed to poach her.

“She’s as stubborn as you,” Cole had said with a grin.

“Well, I’m glad of it,” Anne had replied, “because her stubbornness has brought us together again! I hope she resists being ‘poached’ for as long as I’m studying here.”

Cole hoped so too – he had missed Anne’s constant company so much since leaving Avonlea. And partway through his third week at Queen’s, he’d come across another reason to hope that his art history classes would stay put. That reason was named Royal Gardner.

Roy was a poet, an intellectual, and heir apparent to a very large fortune, making him something of a celebrity on the college campus. Unbeknownst to Anne, therefore, many eyebrows were raised when he began to be spotted in her company... unbeknownst to the owners of those eyebrows, Roy’s interest was centred, not on the fiery redhead, but on the shy art student who was so often to be found at her side. The three of them were all but inseparable.

And so, upon later reflection, it shouldn’t have been so surprising that Philippa Gordon - beautiful, sought-after Phil with her wonderful eyebrows and high, airy laugh like the call of a siren - would make a point of approaching Anne on what she considered to be some common ground.

“Who would have thought it,” she remarked now, sitting down at Anne's café table without invitation. “You and I - the poorest and richest girls on the campus, both very squarely in the same boat.“

Anne was so curious as to her meaning that she barely even noticed the affront to her standing. “The same boat? How so?”

Philippa gave a dramatic sigh. “Why, both caught between two beaux, of course. You must have noticed mine. Alec and Alonzo - two dear boys, and I like them both so much that I really don't know which I like the better. That is the trouble. I managed to slip away from them this morning because I wanted to see if you’ve made any more headway than I in choosing.”

Anne was lost. “Between Alec and Alonzo?”

“No, you perfect goose, between your two suitors. It’s quite the topic amongst the senior girls, you know, and that’s unusual - you being a freshette.”

A realisation dawned upon Anne. “You’ve confused me for Tillie Boulter,” she said, with a chuckle. “Tillie has had a Paul at each heel for a while now. I don’t believe she has any intention of choosing.”

She felt a flicker of vain satisfaction at being confused with Tillie, whose lovely dark hair and rosy cheeks had long been objects of covet for Anne. But Philippa shook her head effusively.

“No, Anne - may I call you Anne? ‘Shirley-Cuthbert’ is a frightful mouthful, but I hope my knowing it assures you that I’ve not confused you with anyone. It’s you I’ve noticed - though you’ll point Tillie out to me sometime, will you? She sounds fascinating. I’d love to have a happy medium between Alec and Alonzo, but my father is most insistent that I choose one to marry and cast the other off.” Philippa cleared her throat upon returning from her tangent. “In any case! I’m talking, of course, about Royal Gardner and Cole McKenzie. Most of the older girls have picked Roy out as the better match for you and doubt Cole’s intentions entirely, but I’m more observant than them, you know. Perhaps because of our twin dilemma.” She gave her intoxicating little laugh. “Pun quite unintended.”

“I’m sorry,” Anne said, still a little at sea, “There’s been some mistake. I’ve only ever had one suitor—”

She was interrupted by Phil’s exclamation. “Ah! So it _is_ Roy after all, then?”

“I...”

“I must say I’m glad. Roy is obviously the better of the two, but I had feared that Cole might appeal more to your well-known romantic sensibilities.” Philippa raised a hand. “No, don’t be offended, Anne, you know exactly what I mean. The penniless painter cuts a far more pathetic figure, but then I suppose Roy, being a poet, is dreamy in his own right. And he comes from money. Brava, in that case.”

Anne pounced on the first gap in Philippa’s oration, determined to set the record straight. “Roy is not my beau, Miss Gordon. Neither is Cole. I’m courting a...a young man from home. From Avonlea. His name is Gilbert Blythe.” 

Philippa looked shocked. “You mean you’re writing to a _farm_ boy when you’re surrounded by college men? Two of whom are visibly _dying_ to step out with you?”

Anne thought very briefly of her last encounter with Roy and Cole, and how ‘visibly’ they had been disinterested in anything that wasn’t each other. She set that aside and said primly, “Gilbert isn’t a farm boy, not that I’d mind if he were. Actually, he isn’t in Avonlea at all at present, he’s away at medical school. In _Toronto_.”

“Well, that’s something, I suppose,” Philippa allowed. “Still, wouldn’t it be far more exciting to go about with Roy? Even Cole - at least he’s _here_. Where’s the fun in a college beau if you never see him?”

“We write constantly.”

“Oh, pish, writing! Won’t he at least come on a visit?”

Anne sighed. “He can’t, at least not before Christmas. Our autumn break is a different week, and I’ve forbidden him from taking a weekend jaunt. It would take far too long to get here, and he can’t afford to lose a whole day’s study - he was a late entry as it is.”

Philippa clucked her disapproval. “You’re a funny girl, but I suppose it’s part of your charm. So it’s not Roy you’re waiting for here, then?”

“No,” said Anne. “Just a few of the girls from Avonlea. Stay, if you like - Tillie will be coming, and you can... compare ship’s logs.”

“I don’t follow.”

“I was extending your metaphor - about being ‘in the same boat’.”

“Oh, metaphors,” said Phil, resignedly. She addressed an imaginary audience: “And she says she’d rather a doctor than a poet!”

Philippa shared the mix-up quite uproariously with the Avonlea girls once they arrived for tea, and Anne and Diana exchanged an amused glance across the table.

“I’m not sure how you managed to be aware of Anne and not know about Gilbert,” Josie Pye remarked to Philippa, who was seated on her left. “He’s by far her favorite subject.”

“Well, all told, today was our first pow-wow,” Phil admitted. She smiled round at the table, basking in the admiration of the group, who felt quite honoured to have her with them. They’d all been made to feel rather ‘country’ in comparison with most of the Charlottetown natives, so having Philippa in their midst was quite a novelty. She was generous with her attention, and not uncomfortably aware that they felt blessed by it. “But now that we’re acquainted, I’m determined to have you all as friends. Which of you is Tillie Boulter?”

Tillie made herself known with a blushing wave.

“I’m especially keen to know you. Anne says we have much in common. Two things, in particular! But that will have to wait, for I’m dreadfully late for a dress fitting. When shall l see you next?”

“We meet here to walk back to our boarding-house, most days,” supplied Jane Andrews. 

“Scrumptious.” Philippa stood up, and bade them all farewell, checking each name as she did so. Then she was gone, as quickly as she had arrived when Anne was alone.

“Anne,” sighed Ruby, in her wake, “You do make the most fantastical things happen. I’ve been longing to speak to Philippa since the first day I saw her.”

“Well, you didn’t make much advance on her just now,” Diana remarked. “I don’t think you said a word besides your name!”

“I was too nervous,” Ruby squeaked. “She’s like a princess. I couldn’t bear to say something silly in front of her.”

“You do usually save that for us,” Jane said, teasingly. Ruby pouted a little, but soon joined in the laughter. They were all a little dazed by Philippa’s presence - all except Anne, who was mostly just relieved that their confusing conversation was over. 

The memory of it faded in the days that followed, as the first round of exams were announced and crammed for. Philippa did meet them a few times at Charlotte’s Café, and became particularly chummy with Tillie around campus, but Anne was not to speak privately with her again until almost a fortnight later. This time, she was not waiting for the others, but writing to Marilla at her usual table in the café. A cup of sweet tea sat by her letter, still half full when she was interrupted - and she was startled less by Philippa’s arrival than by her serious expression.

“Golly,” she said, sounding as grave as she looked. “Do I have a piece of gossip. And you’re the first to know it, Anne, because I think... well, you’ll see...”

She sat herself down, slowly - it was very odd to see her move so, this girl who usually seemed more butterfly than beetle - and Anne cleared her throat in the silence. “What on earth is the matter?”

“It’s Roy,” said Philippa, leaning forward. Her voice was uncharacteristically low. She usually spoke as if she didn’t mind, possibly even wanted, the neighboring tables to hear every word she said. Now, Anne found herself leaning forward too, to be in with a chance of understanding what she was being told.

“Last night,” said Phil, “I was up rather late. I’m not a very good sleeper, so I usually moon about in front of my window for a little while. You know I’ve a beautiful view of Ramsey Park, and when it’s halfway dark I like it best of all, by candlelight. But I — Anne, I saw Roy there last night.”

“I see,” said Anne. “Well, as well you might. He bunks on the other side of the Park, doesn’t he?”

“Yes. Oh, but Anne…” Philippa took a deep breath. “What I saw - I don’t know what to... I think you need to know, as you’re his friend… both of theirs…”

Anne felt a tightening in her forehead suddenly - a wrinkle of concern. There was only one ‘both’ Roy belonged to, and only one that could produce such a reaction in Philippa. She recognised the girl’s curious expression now: it was horror.

“I saw Roy and Cole together… _kissing_ ,” came the hissed confession. Philippa’s eyes were wide. “They were under the shelter opposite my window. I didn’t get a terribly good view of Cole’s face, with his cap on, but it must have been him. I know his jacket - I’ve _envied_ that jacket. But now...”

Anne swallowed. She pressed her hands together.

Then, as if sent from on high, the lie sprang fully-formed into her mind, with a suddenness that she’d later examine with a mixture of pride and bafflement. She was not by nature a deceitful person, and usually planned her ‘alternative explanations’ well in advance, so as to be sure that Marilla - or Rachel, or whomever else needed to hear one - would not see any fault-lines. Now, though, a new instinct awoke itself, and she threw back her head in a laugh of dismissal that was so confident as to be haughty.

“Oh, Phil, you poor thing! Did you really think that was Cole? Well, I can see why you would, I suppose, and the mind does play such tricks when we’re convinced of something.” She took a sip of her tea, aware that Philippa was on absolute tenterhooks on the other side of the table. “That was Roy and _me_ you saw, you funny girl. Couldn’t you notice from my build? Oh, but I suppose Cole is rather slender himself. I had some funny idea about trying on men’s trousers - don’t laugh,” she punctuated her sentence with this admonition quite unnecessarily, for Philippa was certainly nowhere close to laughing, “and of course I didn’t think anyone would see, it being so dark outside. Roy insisted on accompanying me - he’s ever so chivalrous, you know - and Cole lent me his lovely violet jacket. You’re not the only one to have envied that.”

Drawing a breath, Anne dared to glance at Phil, anxious to see how her story was being received. She was heartened to see surprise overtaking disbelief, and the awful suspicion that had flooded her friend’s features was completely gone.

“I believe - yes, I believe he even lent me his cap,” Anne continued. “It was either his or Roy’s. Tell me, was Roy wearing his cap when you saw us?”

Philippa blinked. “Yes.”

“Ah, so it was Cole’s, then! Well, I can see now, almost, why you were so certain I was Cole. I tucked all my hair inside the cap, as part of my play-acting as a gentleman.” Anne widened her eyes, as if in a sudden realisation. “Oh, Phil, you don’t think I’m terrible, do you? Trousers are really very practical, especially for a cold evening. I don’t see why we can’t wear them always.”

Philippa recovered herself enough to respond to Anne’s beseeching stare. “Anne, I don’t think I could ever think you terrible. I think you’re fabulous and daring, and certainly we will return to the subject of... _trousers_ , at a later date. However,” - and at this point Anne’s heart leapt abruptly to her mouth, certain that she hadn’t been believed after all and that Cole was still at risk - “The far more pressing matter, of course, is that you and Roy were _kissing_! That’s quite a development - you’ve been so cold with the poor sap that I half thought you were still gone over that farm boy.”

Drawing greatly upon her capacity as an actress, and a little upon old habits, Anne wrinkled her nose. “Oh, no. Gilbert? No, that’s quite over with.” _Forgive me, Gil_ , she prayed silently, _I love you I love you I love you and this is for Cole_. She raised her eyebrows and returned her attention to Philippa. “Didn’t you say yourself that Roy was far more exciting?”

“Well, of course, but I’m accustomed to you ignoring my opinions. Stubborn little thing that you are.” Philippa had by now returned to her usual self, and chuckled gleefully. “You dark horse, Anne! That didn’t seem to be a first kiss, the one I saw - you seemed quite sure of each other. How long has this been going on?”

Anne played coy. “Oh, well. A week, it must be by now. We were rather hoping to keep things quiet.” A cool dread began to make its way down her spine, as she realised to whom she was speaking, and how quickly the news would now spread.

“Well, that shan’t last,” Philippa said, as if to echo Anne’s thoughts. “Surely he’ll accompany you to the dance on Saturday?”

Anne swallowed. “Um,” she said intelligently, “I don’t think— that is, he hasn’t mentioned the dance.”

“Nonsense,” said Philippa, “He’ll want to show you off, and who could blame him? You’re a beauty – even in men’s garb, I shouldn’t wonder. But don’t get any silly ideas about your wardrobe for the dance. You’ll borrow one of my dresses, of course.”

Anne’s heartbeat was suddenly very loud in her own head. This was going to spiral entirely out of her control; Philippa was a powerful force for gossip, and even if she got out of the dance somehow, the world would know soon enough that Anne and Roy were practically engaged. She’d have to write to Gilbert as soon as she arrived home, so that nothing else would reach his ears before she had a chance to tell him what she’d done. She couldn’t say for sure that she’d ever mentioned Roy in conjunction with Cole in her letters, so the name would mean nothing to him... but he’d understand, wouldn’t he? He’d expressed sympathy for Cole’s situation. And what should he care what a few scholars from Queen’s thought? Anne could easily stage a breaking off, and if some viewed her as fickle afterwards, for going back to Gilbert, well, it was still far better, in the long run, that she saved Cole from expulsion - or worse. She had far less to lose by people thinking it was _she_ who liked kissing Roy in trousers.

Phil, she realised, was still talking about the dance. “Oh, and I’ve still to decide whether I’ll be going on Alec’s arm or Alonzo’s. Poor little me. I can’t even bring myself to care about that, now - how thrilling that you’ll be on Roy’s! Would it be completely vulgar of me to congratulate him?”

“Yes,” said Anne quickly, glad to be able to speak honestly as Philippa danced close to one of her firmly-held ideals, “It would. I’m not a conquest or a – a land purchase, you know. No woman is.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” said Philippa, “You know I don’t think that. I just mean it’s paid off, hasn’t it, all his perseverance.” Her eyes suddenly lit up still more brilliantly than before. “Well, someone’s ears have been burning!”

Anne spun round, and her worst fear was realised: there was Roy, at the door of Charlotte’s Café, blissfully unaware that he’d just been cast in a comedy of errors worthy of his beloved Shakespeare. He gave Anne a friendly glance and she stood abruptly from the table, forcing herself to take the bull by the horns. She skittered across the café and said, loudly, “Roy, darling! There you are.”

Boldly she stepped right up to him and slipped a hand through the crook of his arm. “Desperate measures,” she mumbled, “Just follow my lead.”

Roy looked baffled, understandably, and Anne had to jerk hard on his elbow to get him over to the table where Philippa still sat. “I’m afraid I’ve had to come clean to Philippa. It couldn’t be avoided. She saw us last night, you see. She saw us _kissing_ under the garden shelter. You know, when I was so silly in _borrowing Cole’s clothes._ ”

She eyed him meaningfully throughout the speech, willing him to assimilate the information as it was meant. She saw a horror pass through him as he glanced down at Philippa. For once, the eloquent wordsmith was rendered all but speechless. All he could come up with was a faint, “Oh.”

Anne laughed gaily to give him some more time, but laced her words with more warning. “We ought to have been more careful. Well, the secret is out, now! You know what a frightful foghorn Phil is.”

Philippa gave a mock-gasp. “How dare you! But I can hardly deny it, can I? Though I prefer the term ‘fount of information’.”

“Yes, well, since all of Charlottetown seem to drink at that particular fountain,” Anne said, with a grin at Philippa and a pointed set of eyebrows at Roy, “You’ll see I had no choice. Well, Roy, have you come to get me?” 

She gave him no proper chance to reply, since he quite obviously hadn’t come to see her at all. The one saving grace was that it was Thursday - one of Cole’s art school days - so at least he wasn’t about to come around the corner himself. She reached up to give Roy a kiss on the cheek that was chaste but closer to his lips than his ear. Anne hoped Philippa would notice. 

“We’ll be off, then. Lovely to see you, Phil,” she gushed, rotating Roy around so that she spoke over her shoulder to her friend.

“Come around tomorrow for a dress fitting!” Philippa called after her. “I won’t take no for an answer!”

Anne gritted her teeth and made it out of the café doors before expelling her breath. Once outside, she and Roy turned the corner and then collapsed against the wall. Anne felt like she’d been running for miles. But Philippa had swallowed the story all right. For now, they were safe. 

“Anne,” said Roy, “I don’t — I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Then don’t,” said Anne, “I don’t expect it. It’s nothing, really, and I’ll explain it all to Gilbert. Oh, but Roy. How could you be so—careless?”

“Careless?” Roy echoed. He looked hurt, but continued softly, “I suppose it was.”

Anne sighed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to scold.” She reached out to touch his arm. “I know, it’s not fair. It’s not fair that you have to hide when I could kiss Gilbert wherever I wanted,” she coloured slightly, “out of doors, I mean. And – and even with Diana, we could walk arm in arm in the street and nobody would bat an eyelid. But you and Cole—”

“I know,” Roy said. “I know. We can’t. We were foolish and rash. But it was dark, Anne, and there were no lights in the windows...”

“Only Philippa and her candle,” said Anne, with a shiver. “I wish I could read her better. Perhaps she could be persuaded to keep a secret, but the look in her eyes... she could be ever so dangerous to you.”

“I know,” Roy said again, voice more hollow than ever.

Anne gave his arm a further pat. “Come on. We’d better go and fill Cole in, and I’ll ask no more payment than a sheet of his writing-paper, just to keep Gilbert in the loop.” Her voice was airy, but it was a concerted effort.

They set off down the road that would take them to Aunt Jo’s. Anne moved her hand to settle in his elbow again, and they walked in step. They passed two girls she recognised vaguely from the campus, so Anne gave the kind of smirk she’d have expected from Josie Pye of old, and was gratified to see them tittering to each other and pointing.

“Just as well to put the story around a little,” she said.

Roy nodded, lost in thought. When the next set of gawping scholars passed them, though, he entered into the spirit of the thing, gazing down fondly at Anne as if she were... well, as if she were Cole.

“There, you see,” Anne said, “We can sell this. Nothing easier.”

“Nothing easier,” Roy said, and they laughed for their audience, the picture of blissful courtship.


	2. the true honour of his soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s some more of this.  
> I’m _trying_ not to go too hard on the ‘straight saviour’ angle here, and certainly Anne wouldn’t think that of herself. But Cole’s grateful, he can’t help it.

Cole was very solemn when they told him what Philippa had seen, and of Anne’s concoction for their rescue. He disappeared off to get the paper for her, and she wrapped him in a tight hug on his return. Anne felt his breath against her ear, how it shook and faltered a little. She closed her eyes and buried her head against his shoulder, angry at the world for how close they had come to disaster.

“What would we have done without you?” he asked her softly, after a long moment.

Anne did not want to think about it. Did not want to think about beatings or jail cells, the end of Cole’s artistic career before it had really begun, the communal burning of Roy’s poetry. The world was darker than it had seemed from their Avonlea schoolroom years ago, when shunning and mockery seemed the worst punishment for Cole’s differences. Anne made no reply, just held him tighter.

“Here’s the paper,” he said, when they parted. The way he held it out reminded her oddly of a worshipper making an offering.

She took the paper, and set it on the nearby window seat, along with the pen Roy had given her. “Thank you. But don’t be so… reverent. It will go to my head.”

“Well, maybe you deserve to be revered.”

“Or maybe I’d do anything for you, as you would for me,” said Anne comfortably, and sat herself down on the cushioned seat. “Now, run along, will you? You know I love you, but Roy is downstairs unaccompanied and probably on the third verse of a sonnet to his lonely heart by now, and I really need to write this letter before the evening post.”

Cole grinned at this, and Anne finally felt warm inside at the sight of it. He turned and left her, then poked his head back around the door and said, “Oh. I love you, too.”

She beamed at him. Then, when he lingered, she added, “Go! He’s on the final couplet!”

She turned her hand to writing as soon as he was gone. _My dear Gilbert_ , she wrote, _Please, don’t be alarmed, but I have had to enter into a little subterfuge...   
  
_

* * *

Diana was skeptical. “Everyone who’s met you for more than five minutes knows that you’re,” she sighed, “I’m sorry, but the word that comes to mind is - _obsessed_ \- with Gilbert. I just don’t know how many people will believe you’ve dropped him for Roy.”

Anne sniffed. “‘Obsessed’ is just a word the disorganized use for the focused.”

“Very well,” said Diana, “Then you’re very _focused_ on Gilbert.”

“No more than I ought to be.”

“The other day, I heard you telling Stella Maynard his shoe size.”

“It was relevant to the conversation—”

“The worst thing was, she replied ‘I know, Anne, you told me yesterday.’”

Anne giggled at that despite herself. “I’ll ask Roy his shoe size the moment I see him.”

“That’s not really the point, is it?” Diana continued. “How on earth are you going to talk about Roy the way you talk about Gilbert? There, just my saying his name has made your eyes do that _thing_ they do...”

Anne squeaked and hid her eyes behind her hands. “Stop. I can’t help it.”

“Exactly!”

“It will be fine,” Anne said, lowering her hands calmly. “I will just pretend I’m talking about Gilbert, and use Roy’s name.”

Diana still looked doubtful. “Alright. Well, it’s a shame Roy makes so free with his full name - goodness, who names a baby ‘Royal’, anyway - because we could have had him pretend his name is short for ‘Gilroy’. You _know_ you’ll go back to your old habit of stopping yourself halfway through Gilbert’s name...”

“What?”

“Don’t play dumb. Who does this sound like: ‘I can’t stay at home, Marilla, because if I miss a day of school Gil— _someone_ will take my place at the top of the class...’”

Anne pretended to think about it. “Hmm... is it Jane?” she guessed, facetiously.

Diana rolled her eyes.

“I don’t mean to make light of all this,” Anne said, more soberly. “I’m going to put all my effort into being convincing. I’ve even borrowed Cole’s jacket, so I can make a great show of returning it to him.”

“That’s good,” said Diana, nodding. “And I’ll tell Priscilla and a few of the others how maddening it’s been, listening to you harp on about Roy from dawn until dusk.”

“Am I really maddening? About Gilbert?” Anne asked.

“No, I’m just getting into character. Oh, but Anne, what about the other Avonlea girls? Are they to be in on the secret?”

Anne considered. “I don’t see how they can be, without telling them about Cole. I think we should keep it between ourselves, really. I’ll feel absolutely rotten, deceiving them, but... well, I’m never _quite_ sure of Josie even now, and Jane can be ever so old-fashioned about some things… And they’d all do anything to ingratiate themselves to Philippa. I don’t mean that they’d be spiteful, probably, but she does have such a _hold_ over them. No, the fewer people who know, the less chance there is of things unravelling. Ruby, particularly, isn’t a gifted secret-keeper.”

“Poor Moody,” Diana remarked. “News of Gilbert’s bachelorhood is sure to be the first big test of his and Ruby’s courtship.”

Anne chuckled. “Perhaps I should have added a footnote to my letter: ‘please disregard any and all proposals of marriage from Ruby Gillis...’”

“You’ve sent it, then?”

“On my way home from Aunt Jo’s. It ought to be with Gilbert by Saturday. I wonder what he’s going to say.” A cloud came over Anne’s face. “Saturday! I meant to tell you. I’ll have to break our agreement, Diana.”

“Agreement?” Diana looked a little bewildered.

“To go to the dance together, without escorts! Or had you forgotten?”

“No-o,” came the sheepish reply.

“Well, even if you had, it doesn’t matter now. Philippa is picking me out a dress from that enormous wardrobe of hers, and poor Roy will have to take me.”

“Poor Roy,” Diana agreed.

Anne waited expectantly. “Go on,” she said, “Who’s asked you? Someone has, I can tell.”

“Nonsense,” said Diana primly, “Nobody’s asked me a thing.”

“Alright,” said Anne, eyes narrowed, “But you’re hoping somebody will. Come on, Di...”

Diana stood firm against Anne’s stare for all of about seven seconds. “Fine. It’s Fred Wright, if you must know. Today he said there was something he’d been meaning to ask me, and that he’d walk me home from afternoon lectures tomorrow. I can only think he’s going to ask me to the dance.”

Anne clapped her hands together. “Good. Fred seems nice, I think—” She snapped her mouth shut. Then, “You see? I managed not to say any of his name. Just practicing. I was going to say ‘I think Gilbert would like him’.”

Diana smiled. There was a hint of something sadder there, though, and the fleeting thought of Jerry had Anne commiserating silently. Disagree though she might with how her friend had handled the situation, it was evident in moments like these that Diana honestly regretted how it had turned out. But here they were, miles away from home and Jerry and everything they knew… and here, too, was Fred. Handsome and merry, and while not splendidly rich like Roy, he was far closer to the ideal than Jerry could hope to be.

It was a pity.

“What are you going to wear?” Anne asked, breaking the silence, and the mood. Diana sprang to life again, and the two discussed necklines and sleeves for the remainder of the evening, joined eventually by the other girls. As she lay down her head that night, Anne pictured Gilbert - as she always did - lying in the dorm room he’d described so vividly, at her instruction.

And, as she always did, she fell asleep smiling.   
  


* * *

Roy arrived promptly to walk her to morning classes the next day, which was Friday. Anne steeled herself for the reaction of her friends.

She need not have worried too much: Tillie was congratulatory, even suggesting that Roy was the more handsome of the two men – an assertion to which Anne found it very difficult to nod, but managed – and Josie looked a little smug, as if to say she’d known all along that it was the right thing to dissuade Anne from speaking to Gilbert. That only left Jane and Ruby on the opposing side of the coin, but even Ruby ventured no further than a scandalised expression and a hurried whisper in Jane’s ear. What they were saying, Anne did not care to know. Well, that wasn’t quite true: she was dying to know, but could hardly trust herself not to defend someone’s honour upon hearing it: her own, or Gilbert’s, or Roy’s – so it was best left in whispers.

Cole’s honour, that was what mattered - and not the true honour of his soul, even: just the outer appearance, the safety of his classes at Queen’s and eventual return to art school.

Out in front of the rest of the group, Anne and Roy spoke amiably about poetry - both could quote extensively from the Romantics and the Metaphysicals, and Roy had set himself the challenge of memorising as much of Wordsworth’s Prelude as he possibly could. Anne listened as far as he could go, and remembered that he had quoted Wordsworth to her the very first time they met. She named William Butler Yeats as her favourite poet just at present, but she was liable to change like the wind to favour whosoever’s verse she had most recently devoured. Roy’s devotion to Wordsworth impressed her.

“Do you have a favourite line of his?” she asked him, upon pointing it out.

Roy thought for a moment. “ _Your love hath been, not long ago, / A fountain at my fond heart's door, / Whose only business was to flow._ ”

“Oh,” said Anne, “It’s beautiful. But a little sorrowful.”

“Yes. Well, I like it less for what it says, and more for whom he wrote it.”

“And who was that? His wife?”

“No. For Samuel Taylor Coleridge.”

“Oh,” said Anne, with more feeling. “Were they...”

“I’m not sure,” said Roy, “but perhaps. And even if not, as a poet, one can write these things, and people will say you were friends.”

Anne hummed acknowledgment. “Then I’m glad it’s what you are,” she said softly. “Anybody who knows will know. And those who won’t can argue it in papers for centuries after you’re dead, for all you’ll care.”

Roy chuckled. “My verse? Not likely.”

“You mean you won’t even try to get it published?”

“I mean that if I do, I hardly think it will outlive me.”

“Well,” said Anne, “I think you’re wrong. I think your poems and Cole’s paintings and my stories will carry on together for... for...” She beamed as she hit on the perfect quotation. “For _as long as men can breathe, or eyes can see._ ”

“ _So long lives this, and this gives life to thee_ ,” Roy finished, smiling. “Another one that scholars try and explain away. I suppose you don’t know who Sonnet Eighteen is addressed to.”

“Actually, I do,” Anne said with pride. “It’s part of the Fair Youth sequence.”

“Ah, I underestimated you,” said Roy, eyes twinkling. It occurred to Anne fleetingly that were he a different kind of man, Roy might actually have been the closest thing to a competitor that Gilbert would ever have. Even then, there would be no contest, but it wouldn’t hurt Gilbert to pick up the 1609 quarto every once in a while.

Anne was genuinely surprised to have arrived so quickly at her first class - Roy’s company was easy and their common ground pleasant to dwell on. He kissed her hand with a flourish upon delivering her to the door, and Anne gazed after him with friendly fondness, content for those around her to interpret it as they pleased.

Throughout the morning, Anne came to the flattering but strange realisation that Philippa had not been exaggerating, that first day, when she’d claimed Roy’s pursuit of Anne was the talk of the upper classes. Girls she’d never seen before came and told her how impressed they were, or how jealous - and Roy had his fair share of claps on the shoulder from his college fellows, much to Anne’s indignation.

“It’s only because I’m rich,” said Roy, “That’s why they’re so invested in who I’ll marry.”

“Well, I’m poor,” said Anne, feeling that he was missing the point, “Compared to almost anyone, but especially compared to you. So why are _you_ getting all those congratulations?”

He gave a half smile. “You must know why.”

“I certainly do not.”

“You were Anne, the Unattainable,” he declared, leaning back on the bench they had to themselves in the college grounds, in a rare moment of quiet. “Far too wrapped up in your books and your letters to Toronto to look twice at anyone here. And besides... look at you. Frank Stockley says you’re the most captivating girl on campus, but I shouldn’t pass that on to Josie.”

“No fear,” said Anne faintly. “It’s very odd. I’m not looking for compliments, Roy, truly: I’ve made peace with all of my self now, even my hair, and I believe Gilbert when he says he thinks me beautiful - but that’s because he loves me. I don’t know why I’ve a reputation for beauty _here_.”

“No, it seems you don’t,” Roy agreed. “And perhaps that’s why.”

Anne frowned at him. “Boys are such odd creatures.” She looked past him suddenly, at a figure coming down past the studio building, a canvas and easel tucked under one arm. “Oh, but here’s one I don’t mind quite so much.”

Cole greeted them warmly. “No, don’t move,” he said, as they shifted to make space for him on the bench. “I’m going to set up just here.”

He set his easel on a flat piece of grass a few feet away, and produced, in baffling quantity, a number of artistic supplies from his pockets. As promised, Anne had returned the jacket to him before an audience of scholars that morning, and he must have spent his time since then loading it up with paints and brushes.

“I’ve been waiting for a clear day,” he explained, “You don’t mind modelling, do you? It seems... opportune. With our current arrangement.”

Anne smiled. “I don’t mind,” she said, “Do you, Roy?”

“Anything for my beloved,” Roy said, and he curled his arm around Anne’s shoulders but looked quite squarely at the painter, who was already portioning out the canvas.   
  


* * *

“Anne,” said Ruby Gillis, catching her on the walk between their last two classes of the afternoon, “May I ask you something?”

“Of course,” said Anne, with just a hint of uneasiness.

“What happened between you and Gilbert?”

Ruby’s face was full of such earnest concern that Anne promptly felt guilty for sharing jokes about Ruby’s past feelings. Obviously her friend harboured no ambition to profit from Anne’s supposed misfortune, or to swoop in at the desperate hour of Gilbert’s. Ruby was just a sweet, sweet girl, and now Anne had to lie to her.

For Cole, she reminded herself.

“We... grew tired of the distance,” she said, vaguely. “College romance is not all that serious, you know. Roy is here, and Gilbert is not.”

“But you truly loved him,” Ruby said. With her grave expression and fair features, she looked unearthly pale, almost ill. Actually, Anne wondered if it was more than that. She sidestepped Ruby’s question entirely.

“Are you quite well?” she asked instead. “You don’t seem yourself.”

“Just a little tired this morning,” came the reply. “Don’t change the subject, Anne. I know there’s something more than what you’re saying. And I’m sorry for you. If you can’t tell me, will you at least tell Diana?”

Oh, Ruby. Anne wrapped her suddenly in an embrace. “You’re a real pal, Ruby,” she said, though she was distracted somewhat by how thin her friend had become. How could she not have noticed? Perhaps she really had been too absorbed with Gilbert since they had arrived at Queen’s... perhaps there was some truth in Diana’s ‘maddening’, and Roy’s ‘unattainable’. Anne determined to pay a little more attention to Ruby in future. If she wasn’t looking rosier a week from now, something would have to be done.

“Diana knows a little more,” Anne admitted, upon their parting. “But you really mustn’t worry yourself; Gilbert and I understand each other well. Perhaps things will change, later on - for now, you must get used to Roy. He’s splendid.”

Ruby did not look entirely convinced.

“What about you and Moody?” Anne asked, feeling that she had answered all she could. “Are you going to the dance tomorrow night?”

Ruby brightened a little. “Yes,” she said, “He asked me as soon as the notice was posted. And he’s bringing me a yellow primrose for my corsage.”

“You’ll look divine,” said Anne approvingly, and made a mental note to remind Roy that some kind of floral offering would be expected of him as well. That brought a pang: her first real, grown-up dance, and she would be spending it with somebody else – somebody other than Gilbert. Small talk and rumours around the college were trifling matters, compared. She’d danced with Gilbert in the schoolroom; she had dreamed of dancing with him at their wedding, and at every occasion in between. But not this one.

Well, there wasn’t any point in wallowing. It wasn’t as though Gilbert would be there, even without the _arrangement_ , as Cole had called it. So she could dance with no-one, or she could dance with Roy. At least this way she was securing up her lie to Philippa.

Anne was proud of how quickly she’d talked herself out of her decline: her inner Marilla was in full working order. Good.

She recounted her conversation with Ruby to Diana that night, as they got ready for bed. Diana was in high spirits, her walk with Fred Wright having yielded the desired result - an invitation to the dance. She sobered somewhat when Anne mentioned her concern for Ruby’s health.

“Perhaps being away from home doesn’t agree with her,” Diana suggested, hopeful. “You know how she was after the fire.”

“You might be right,” Anne said.

“Who would have thought Ruby would be the only one to suspect, though.”

“I don’t know that she suspects, exactly. She didn’t mention Cole...”

“No, not about Cole and Roy, about you and Gilbert. I didn’t realise she could be so... perceptive.”

Anne gave a shrug. “I think we’ve been seeing the real Ruby since the day she gave up on Gilbert, and she’s very different to the one we thought we knew. Oh, I hope she isn’t really sickening for anything, because if she is, it will have to be something purely medical – she seemed so happy about going to the dance with Moody. I’m going to stake all my hopes on your theory of homesickness, Diana. And perhaps we can cajole Moody into playing some old familiar tunes tomorrow night, to make her feel at home – he has brought his fiddle, hasn’t he?”

“I should think so, but if he’s playing, he can’t be dancing with Ruby.”

“Oh,” Anne giggled. “As ever, darling Diana, you are quite right.”

“‘As ever’?” Diana queried. “I’ll remember that.”


	3. the proof of the thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is possible that I snuck in a few references to Anne & Gilbert: The Musical here, because... well... it’s the law.
> 
> Oh! And also, this might count as spoilering my own story, but I’m just going to say that Ruby is going to be alright. Admittedly I did pick her to be the one to fall ill in order to mirror the books but I’m not going to be adding any “character death” tags. #EverybodyLives

Saturday dawned crisp and bright, exactly the kind of autumnal morning Anne loved best. She had a quiet hour to herself before the others awoke, and spent it at her desk, writing to Gilbert and looking out of the window by turns.

 _What a tangled web we weave,_ she wrote, _when first we practice to deceive. Well, I’ve had such a lot of practice now that I’m turning into an expert._

_I miss you terribly, you know. Somehow when I could talk about you constantly, it was as though you were here. Now I can talk only of Roy while anyone but Diana or Cole is about – and Aunt Josephine, of course. She’s a brick. I think at first she was concerned that Roy and I might actually marry for show, but I assured her that this is only a short-term arrangement. Once Cole is back at art school full-time, I will break things off with Roy. Perhaps we can have a heated dispute in some public square - that would be quite fun! Completely unladylike, of course, like all the best things. And then I’ll write a deliciously grovelling letter addressed to you and leave it out for everyone to see how I’m begging for your forgiveness. It will be the most exquisite grovelling you’ve ever read, and even the imaginary You would take me back, I shouldn’t wonder._

_Of course, I don’t know that grovelling isn’t warranted anyway - perhaps you aren’t pleased with me for all this! (I will make it up to you in spades, darling.) As I’m writing, on Saturday morning, you won’t even have received my last letter, even though I paid a pretty penny to put it on the express. Do you remember the story I wrote about the magical letterbox, which delivered things instantly? That would be ever so useful to have. Then I wouldn’t mind quite as much, not seeing you._

_It’s really too bad that your breaks don’t match up with ours. What awful person planned the University calendar? If you meet with them, please give them a piece of my mind - you know it well enough by now. In some ways, though, it’s lovely to have the first months of our courtship documented in letters. If we still lived a half-mile apart, or were battling for the highest score in the same college classes, we wouldn’t write to one another, would we?_

_Or perhaps we would; perhaps we’d have written love-notes on scraps of paper left in textbooks and coat pockets. They would have their own charm and history - but they wouldn’t be long and beautiful like these letters. I’m glad you’re going to be a doctor, because that’s just worthwhile enough to make up for you not being a writer. Whoever would have thought you had it in you to be so romantical? Not I, but then I did put a lot of effort into avoiding it._

_I berate myself for the lost time now! Still, it’s nice to still be at the beginning of forever. And when you come home from University, forever will begin again. And when_

Anne paused her pen, halting just before she wrote the words, ‘ _when we are married_ ’. It seemed like a foregone conclusion, really, after everything they had been through, and certainly she did not feel bound by tradition to let Gilbert mention marriage before she did – but it seemed a shame for the subject to be broached first in writing, in either direction. Some things really did have to happen in person, with sight and sound and touch.

 _And whenever there comes a morning after a night_ , she continued, picking up the word seamlessly, _forever begins again. Such is the way of things now – underneath all the cares of college life, I find myself deliriously happy. And it’s all your fault, Gilbert Blythe!_

_Do you know, I think I’ll write that grovelling letter right away. It will be fun to flex my imaginative muscles for once – it’s been an age since I’ve dreamed up a story, what with all the essays I must churn out these days, and I’ve still got a few minutes before the others start to stir. Then it will be a madhouse, since everyone is going to the dance and will need hours and hours to get each other ready._

_I love you quite beyond reason – and with a pinch of mischief, now that it’s a secret._

She signed off her letter and folded it up, leaving the envelope blank for now. She would wait to post it until she could be sure nobody would read the address – a history of mishap, particularly around letter-writing, told her to be cautious. She put the envelope in her desk drawer and got out some fresh paper, smiling mischievously to herself as she mentally drafted out the ‘grovelling’ note. 

_My dearest Gilbert,_ she wrote lavishly. _I hardly deserve your forgiveness, but I must implore you to take me back..._   
  


* * *

“An orchid,” said Anne, trying her best to sound appreciative as she took it from him, “Thank you, Roy.”

He smiled, sheepish in his perfectly tailored suit. “Will it do? My mother likes orchids. I wasn’t sure if it would go with your dress.”

It certainly would not, but in the absence of an alternative, Anne smiled back at him and said, “It’s beautiful. Will you pin it on?”

He stepped closer to her to do so, far closer than they had ever been face-to-face. There was a current of friendly awkwardness, nothing similar to how Anne might have felt with Gilbert touching her dress just there, face so close she could kiss him without moving her head. Anne found herself giggling.

“What?” Roy asked, looking up at her. “Oh,” he said, upon realising that their faces were barely an inch apart and, too, that this was the cause of her laughter. They were both still laughing when he stepped away to survey the orchid’s placement, which was how they were discovered by Tillie, both Pauls, Jane, Josie, and Frank. Tillie had lent one of the Pauls to Jane for the evening, since she was without a beau just then, but neither Paul seemed to have agreed whom it was she had lent.

“Share the joke?” asked Frank amiably. Josie looked at him with a hint of disdain.

“It’s nothing,” Anne said, still giggling. She tweaked the orchid very slightly, but she had already resigned herself to the fact that it was hopeless. It was the wrong kind of flower entirely – not for the dress, really, which was a deep emerald and would have gone with almost anything, since nearly all leaves are green – but it was the wrong kind of flower for _her_. She would never wear a hothouse flower to a dance. Or at all, for that matter. Hothouse flowers were all very well and good, but they should stay in their hothouses, or in vases. Wild flowers were for wearing – meadowsweets and wonderful red poppies, sprays of forget-me-nots and gypsophila. What she’d really like for this dress would be a lily of the valley – and it was her own fault, she ought to have given Roy more specific instructions. 

_Gilbert wouldn’t have needed specific instructions_ , a tiny voice said in her head, _but then, that is because I talked his ear off about flowers when we had only just become friends, and didn’t even wonder why he listened._

“Where are Diana and Ruby?” she asked, returning to the present.

“Here,” came Diana’s voice from the stairs. “Fred and Moody are bringing a horse and cart. We can’t be seen walking with commoners.”

Anne, who would have heard Diana’s joking tone a mile off, was sent back into peals of laughter. Everything was tremendously funny to her at the moment – she was going to her first college dance with someone else’s beau, she had quite forgotten to ask Philippa for a shrug and would likely freeze on her way home, and to top it all off, she was wearing an _orchid_.

The others didn’t look quite so amused at being called ‘commoners’.

“I should hate to crease my dress climbing into a carriage,” said Josie. “And it’s such a beautiful afternoon, I shall be glad of the walk, won’t you, Frank?”

Frank nodded obediently. Anne watched with interest as Tillie dispatched her nearest Paul to Jane’s arm, after a series of loud whispers. Then, feeling Ruby’s watchful eyes on her, she pressed close to Roy, taking his hand. He gave it a small squeeze, and Anne was reminded of an encounter with Cole shortly before he’d taken his seat for the Christmas Pantomime. It was fitting, since tonight would have to be their best performance yet. She wondered if Cole had made up his mind about attending. She hoped so.

The sound of hoofbeats imposed itself on her wondering, and she saw the cart, driven by Diana’s Fred Wright, coming into view. Moody was sat beside him, and Anne spotted his fiddle leaning up against his knee – good! They were in with a chance of getting him to play.

“That’s us,” said Diana, pulling Ruby with her. Moody slung his fiddle in the back of the cart and jumped down, presenting Ruby with the promised yellow primrose. Anne had been right – she looked perfectly divine in her soft cream dress with its yellow frills and, now, the flower to match.

“A flower!” said Fred, in consternation. “I knew there was something I’d forgotten.”

Diana laughed. “Then what is that poking out of your pocket?”

He looked down at the offending petal. “Ah, another joke ruined by poor presentation. Here you go. Don’t crumple it.”

Anne tried very much not to mind as Fred’s purple dahlia finished Diana’s outfit perfectly. The orchid was fine. The orchid was not a problem. In the grand scheme of things, the orchid mattered less than not at all. 

“I’m sorry about the orchid,” Roy whispered in her ear, and Anne rested her head against his shoulder affectionately.

“Don’t be,” she whispered back. _After all_ , she added silently, _it may not be me, but it’s hardly my biggest charade of the night.   
  
_

* * *

“Roy! Anne! Come, girls, the most scrumptious new couple of Charlottetown has arrived!”

Anne heard Phil before she saw her, and then she saw her indeed: resplendent in a flowing fuchsia gown, her hair curled and lifted like a princess in a fairytale and sporting two rosebud corsages, one white and one pink. Alec was by her side, with Alonzo hovering in the middle distance, part of the gaggle of young scholars who followed Philippa towards the door.

Anne smiled demurely as Roy led her down the steps and into the hall. The Charlottetown Hotel had been decorated beautifully for the dance, with swathes of coloured silk draped around the windows and along the walls, tied in bows at each end, and candles lit in every sconce. It looked just as she had dreamed it would.

Philippa kissed her on the cheek when they met. “I told you that green would work out, didn’t I? It sets your hair off marvellously. Hello, Roy! You’re the talk of the party, I’m afraid. All eyes will be on you when the music starts up.”

“Thrilling,” said Roy, deadpan, and Philippa guffawed.

“So, do you like Anne better in skirts?” she asked, eyelashes fluttering.

It took him a moment to realise what she meant. “I—Anne is a vision of heaven, whatever she wears,” he said, recovering quickly.

“‘A vision of heaven’,” Philippa repeated. “Ever the poet! I suppose you’ve written reams about her already.”

“Yes,” said Roy. Then, after a moment, “Just this morning I composed a sonnet to... to her eyebrows.”

Anne found it in her, somehow, not to laugh, for Philippa lapped up his fib.

“Oh! I’d love to read it – her eyebrows are to die for. How does it go, Queen Anne?”

“I haven’t read it myself, yet,” Anne said, “He never lets me read rough drafts, do you, Roy?”

“No,” he said, “She pokes holes in the scansion.”

“I have no idea what that means, you pretty little intellectuals,” said Philippa with a wave of her hand, “But I’ll catch up with you later. I’m looking for some poor unattached wallflower to hook Alonzo onto. Off you go!”

Thus dismissed, Roy and Anne made their way further into the ballroom, both trying very hard not to laugh more uproariously than polite company would allow. It wouldn’t normally bother Anne how loud or how ungainly her enjoyment was, but tonight there were appearances to keep up!

“My eyebrows?” she exclaimed, raising the objects in question to their highest point. Then she waggled them most unprettily. “What possessed you, Roy?”

“I panicked,” he said, “When she didn’t look away after I said ‘yes’.”

“One-word answers never suffice for Philippa,” Anne reflected. “But still – my eyebrows, not my... my lips, or... well, my _eyes_ , at least! Surely that would be easier to rhyme.” 

“I was using your trick,” he said, defensively. “You talk about Gilbert and use my name, so I... borrowed from the sonnet I really did write this morning.”

“To Cole’s eyebrows?” Anne said, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Oh, Roy.” Louder, she added, “He might write a nice letter or two, but I don’t believe Gilbert would ever compose a sonnet to my eyebrows.”

“No, I don’t think he would,” said Diana from behind them, and Anne spun around to see her, squealed, and hugged her tight.

“Didn’t you two see each other ten minutes ago?” Fred asked, amused.

“They’re bosom friends,” said Roy, as though it explained everything, which it did.

“Cole’s around somewhere,” said Diana, directing her words to Anne but glancing at Roy. “I saw Aunt Josephine’s carriage dropping him here.”

“I’ll look out for him,” said Anne, “Perhaps Roy will lend me for a dance.”

“That will tie Philippa in knots,” Diana remarked. “She’ll go back to her old theory that you can’t choose between the two!”

“Well, we haven’t all found ‘Mr Wright’!” Anne quipped. “I jest, of course... I certainly have.” She looked at Roy and thought of Gilbert, wishing uncharacteristically that her imagination weren’t quite so vivid. It was too easy to imagine him there, so easy that she almost dared to check the corner of her eye for a glimpse of him. No! It wouldn’t do to mope. She set her gaze determinedly on Roy, and the music started up just in time to distract her.

Roy was a very good dancer, as she might have expected – and it was a good thing, too, because Philippa had been right about all eyes being on them as they took to the floor. A space cleared around them, other couples half-watching as they danced. Anne felt very conspicuous, and was glad that she had let Jane rearrange her hair after her own first attempt. She was glad, too, of the Avonlea dancing lessons - she might not be classically trained as Roy apparently was, but she could pick up steps well enough, and hold her own.

For an instant she saw herself through the eyes of her peers: the poor orphan who had caught the eye of the wealthiest bachelor in town, spinning around the floor now like Cinderella with her prince. Little did they know how true the parallel was — at midnight, she would be plain old Anne again, writing a lengthy addendum to Gilbert’s letter by moonlight. Though, hopefully with both shoes on. Her feet were smaller than Philippa’s and these were the only nice pair she had.

On a break from dancing, a while later, they found Cole standing by a wall. He did not seem as out of place as Anne might have feared - in fact, he had brought with him a friend he introduced as Joanna Blake, from his art school. Joanna was beautiful, Anne thought – she had a jawline that was somehow square as well as plump, which made her smile so lovely to look at. Her hair was cropped as short as Anne’s had been on that dreaded day when she’d tried to dye it - a pixie haircut, hadn’t that nice lady called it? - only Joanna’s actually was the glossy raven-black that Anne had dreamed of, and it curled up at the ends as though it was always meant to be exactly that length.

“Call me Jo,” she said, upon Cole’s introduction. “And Cole says I’m to tell you I have more in common with his landlady than just our name – whatever he means by that.”

Her twinkling eyes said she knew exactly what he meant, and so did Anne.

“We make quite the hands-four!” Anne said, grinning. “And while I’m dealing out dancing terms, how about a cross formation?”

“Splendid idea,” said Roy. “Of course, if we were at one of Aunt Jo’s soirées, we could swap in the most sensible direction…” He grinned. “For now, Miss Blake, would you care to dance?”

The two of them went off, and Anne stepped closer to Cole. “Mr McKenzie?” she asked, offering her hand like a gentleman. “There’s no bottle-spinning tonight, but we could take on the same roles.”

“I won’t know myself, without Billy Andrews chanting his pet-name for me,” Cole said wryly, correcting their hold as they made their way to the floor. “Come on, then... _freak_.”

He whispered the last word with the softest of smiles, and Anne smiled fondly back at him. Diana might be her bosom friend, and Gilbert the owner of her heart, but she loved Cole in a way she was quite sure she’d never love anyone else. Theirs was its very own understanding; deep and rare and true. She was suddenly glad of everything that had brought them to this point – Cole and Roy’s misguided kiss out of doors, Philippa’s terrifying revelation, the lies, the play-acting... here she was, dancing with Cole, and he was happy, even outside of the secret world he was part of at Aunt Josephine’s. Here she was, dancing with Cole, and over his shoulder she could see Roy, whom she might never have known so well were it not for the ruse… but whom she felt she could now trust with a heart that was very dear to her. The prejudices that had led to her having to... to ‘lead this merry dance’... still made her blood boil, but for now, the music was soaring and the candles were glowing and in the arms of one of her best friends in the world she almost - _almost_ \- didn’t even mind the orchid.

“What are you smiling about?” Cole asked her, when they had been dancing a little while. 

“Just — you,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows. “Me?”

“Yes.” Noting his expression, she added, “Have you read Roy’s latest sonnet?”

“ _A Thursday Morn in Autumn_?”

“No. You haven’t, then, and I shan’t spoil it, but do get hold of it as soon as you can.”

“You’re a tease, Anne Shirley-Cuthbert,” said Cole, “and you’re standing on my foot.”

“Oh!” Anne stepped off. “Just when I was thinking myself a dancer, too. I don’t think I set a toe wrong with Roy.”

“He’s good enough for two, that’s why,” said Cole. “You couldn’t step on his foot even if you tried. He’d preempt you and make it look like nothing happened.”

Anne giggled. “He’s probably been doing that all night, then.”

“Not _all_ night,” said Cole with a grin. “It’s not even eight o’ clock.”

She was still laughing when the music slowed itself to a finish. The band was taking a break. Gradually, the couples began to migrate back to the edges of the room, where Anne was met by Diana.

“Anne! I’m taking Ruby home; she isn’t feeling well. She doesn’t want to alarm Moody just now - he’s about to go up and play. Will you fill him in later?”

“Of course,” said Anne, “But — hadn’t I better come? Poor Ruby…”

“No, stay. You’ve got pretences to keep up, and I’m sure Ruby’s tired more than anything. She doesn’t want fuss. Fred will take us home in the carriage. I made sure he’d have it for this very reason, in light of our conversation last night.” Diana took Anne’s arm and pulled her a little closer. “Besides, you can’t miss the next dance, Anne - it’s your showpiece. And it will be easier than ever to imagine you’re dancing with Gilbert.”

With that, Diana was gone, swiftly beelining for where Ruby was sitting, tucked in a corner. Anne watched them with concern.

“Diana will look after her,” Cole said softly. Anne grimly decided to trust that he was right, and to throw herself into her role more thoroughly. If she was going to forsake Ruby, she ought to be absolutely sure she’d saved Cole and Roy.

It came as utterly no surprise to her when she recognised the opening notes of the Dashing White Sergeant. Of course. She scanned the crowd for Roy, and found him giving Jo over to one of Tillie’s Pauls. Jane had received Alec from Philippa, and now dragged him into the middle of the floor.

“Come on!” Anne said, taking Roy by the hand. “You’ll be thrilled to learn that I know this one already, from home. Your toes are safe.”

He blinked, as if in innocence. “My toes?”

Anne giggled, and was glad of it, for it helped to beat down the melancholy of hearing this particular lilting tune in Gilbert’s absence. They took up the formation with Cole as their third, opposite Alec, Jane and Priscilla Grant.

Of course, Roy ‘dashed’ beautifully, and managed to twirl her in the air during the brief bar of music set aside for the change of set. From that point on, Philippa’s prophecy came true once more, and the eyes of all were pinned on the two of them. When the music swelled and changed to a different tune, Anne would have been happy to retire, but Philippa had other ideas.

“It’s ‘You’re Island Through and Through’!” she crowed. “We must have a lead couple. And it must be Anne and Roy!”

 _Must it,_ thought Anne uneasily, but there was very little she could do besides letting Roy lead her to the centre of the floor, whereby Philippa initiated a ring of clapping around the pair. Thankfully, the dance seemed to consist mostly of circles, and once or twice Roy spun her so fast that she could see only him. The blur around everything else made it easier than ever to imagine he was Gilbert, and so she did. Whether it was the motion, or the music, or the joining of voices as the other couples sang around them, she did not know, but that moment was magical. She was no longer acting or thinking – only dancing. The whole world, for Anne, was only her and Gilbert. The whole world, for everyone else, was only her and Roy.

The music finished with a flourish, and Anne felt very dizzy when the circling stopped. She leaned against Roy, who held her up affectionately, and they laughed into each other’s breathless smiles. Roy leaned down so that their foreheads were touching.

 _This, at least, will be the proof of the thing_ , Anne mused, her thoughts stiller than her swaying head.

She was more right than she knew. At the top of the stairs, a hand went suddenly slack, and a lily of the valley fell to the floor.


	4. hair like fire, heart like ice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go. Sorry, Gilbert...

It was a little like a dream.

The long journey, perhaps, had affected his head.

It couldn’t be true.

– Could it?

Gilbert had met Charlie Sloane in the street outside, and had received a baffling commiseration about Anne having a new beau. He’d ignored it, of course: it was Charlie Sloane, for one thing, and for another it was _Anne_ – but then he’d overheard some chatter among the scholars in the entryway. It had taken him quite some time to make his way through them, and by the time he arrived at the door he’d taken in a lot of confusing information.

“Last we heard, she was tied up to a medical student, of all things – no, an Avonlea boy, that’s where she’s from. But now she’s going about with Royal Gardner. What a turn-up!”

“Philippa says they’re awfully serious already. Phil knows these things... they’ll be engaged before the end of the semester, no doubt! It’s because she’s an orphan – Anne, I mean, not Phil – orphans have money to think of, and Roy has money to _spare_.”

“It’s that glorious red hair of hers, that’s what’s hooked him. He’s a poet, you see – and if you knew Anne as I do, you’d know she’s far better suited to a poet than a doctor.”

This last speaker was Stella Maynard, and Gilbert knew her from a devoted description Anne had written of the first new friend she’d made at Queen’s. She had blonde hair in ringlets, unusually dark eyes for her complexion and a beauty spot above her lip – it had to be her.

Even though the details about Anne were worryingly exact and the source disconcertingly familiar, Gilbert had still been sure there must be some mistake, pressing on and following the movement of the crowd as they’d trickled back into the ballroom. Fiddle music had started up, and he’d recognised the Dashing White Sergeant immediately. Well, he had thought, Anne was sure to be dancing to that, so he’d see for himself how ‘awfully serious’ she was.

He saw. Like a lightning bolt had struck him, he saw. 

Words failed him long before there was anyone to address them to – but then came Josie Pye, marching up the stairs with a young man in tow, the fellow yelping some kind of protestation Gilbert didn’t bother to decode.

Josie stopped in her tracks upon recognising him. “Oh. Gilbert. What are you doing here?”

“I came... to see Anne,” he said, and his own voice sounded strange and far away. 

Josie wrinkled her nose. “Hmm. I wondered how long it would be before one of you turned on the dramatics. Well, good luck to you, but she’s positively swooning over that detestable Roy-fellow. He’s a real sop, honestly. I thought you were mad to go after her in the first place, but even I didn’t realise quite how bad her judgement is. I had been quite warming up to her, as well. You deserve better, Gil! Come on, Frank, if you’re coming at all!”

With that, she was gone, and Gilbert turned back to the devastating scene before him. Moody’s music had died away and the band had started up again, a faster, jauntier tune that had everyone clapping, even the few people scattered around the side. Anne and this – _Roy_ – were in the middle of it all, spinning like a pair of tops. Gilbert’s keen eyes picked out Anne’s smile and laugh, and when she was spun out, he saw that she was wearing an orchid. An _orchid_. It – couldn’t be real. This was some terrible nightmare, or he’d fallen into the mirror-world Anne had written about last summer – yes, that was it, he’d fallen asleep on the train from Toronto, or on the ferry to the island, and he was dreaming of one of her fanciful stories – only instead of witches and princesses it was – it was...

 _Anne_...

The music finished. Anne and Roy were locked in an embrace.

He couldn’t watch anymore.

Gilbert turned and stumbled away, back through the entryway, which had emptied a little of people, but seemed no less stifling and crowded and ringing with deafening sound. He ought to go and confront that... that ‘detestable Roy-fellow’, he knew, but he felt closer to passing out, and the dim impression he had was that he ought do something more intimidating to Roy Gardner than fall dead away at the man's feet. He had to collect his thoughts first. His thoughts and the use of his limbs. He steadied himself against a wall, feeling distinctly like he’d been punched hard and winded badly. He had to talk to Anne – _surely_ , surely there was something more to all of this – he knew Anne, his Anne, and she wouldn’t... she _couldn’t_...

But what other explanation could there be?

“Gilbert?”

Moody’s friendly tone had him snapping his head up, and then immediately wishing he hadn’t, as his vision went cloudy. A fine medical student he was turning out to be – he hadn’t drunk a single drop since the carriage changeover this morning, and dehydration did not go well with long-distance travel. Neither did shock, for that matter.

“Moody,” he said huskily, “Tell me it isn’t true. Anne, she isn’t... she can’t be...”

Moody looked intensely awkward. “Oh,” he said. “You... didn’t know?” He pushed a hand through his hair, at a loss. “That’s rough. Sorry, bud.”

That was all the confirmation Gilbert needed.

Or, if not, it was all the confirmation he could bear.

Thoughts of confronting Roy or questioning Anne slipped away from him, sucked out like air.

“I did think something sounded wrong about it,” Moody continued, apparently finding his voice now. “Anne told Ruby you two had an _understanding_.”

“I need—air,” said Gilbert, more or less ignoring him.

Moody followed him out into the street. The fall evening was dark already, and Gilbert was aware of Moody’s presence more by instinct than sight. He was grateful for it; but wished paradoxically that he would leave, that they would all leave him – there were too many people out in the street, more even than there had been in the hall, it seemed... And here there were carriages clattering and horses shuffling, too… far too loud, far too many, far too much...

Anne was unpredictable, it was true, and she had surprised him before, too many times to count, but she had never really _shocked_ him – he had always believed that his knowledge of her ran deeper, stronger than that. She was so utterly herself in everything she said and did that it seemed impossible, unconscionable even, that she would have hidden something like this from him, that she could write him letters of private devotion but then be courting someone else in public. 

But, the thought came hammering back a second time, what other explanation was there? He could think of none. Charlie’s odd statement, the snatches of gossip, Josie’s testimony, Moody’s sorrow on his behalf: separately, these things could be dismissed as misunderstandings. But all of them together?

All of them together, and not to mention Anne’s pure rapture on the dancefloor, her eyes lit like stars, gazing at another man as if he were the open sky in which they hung…

_She’s much more suited to a poet than a doctor._

He had put that fear to rest! He had read each one of her letters over and over again in the first few weeks of their being apart, scarcely daring to believe that she had really chosen him as he had chosen her… He had told himself that there was no risk in her being surrounded by like-minded scholars at Queen’s, that he would be a teacher’s husband and she a doctor’s wife and neither would begrudge the life of compromise and hard-earned modesty of income that would bring them.

But had he been deceiving himself, all this time?

He must have been. He loved her and could not doubt her. His only alternative was to doubt himself.

The doubt came like thick fog, suffocating. It filled his head, drowning out all else, and the next thing he was materially aware of was Moody tugging on his sleeve. He only caught the end of the sentence.

“...with me?”

Gilbert focused. “What did you say?”

“Ruby. They took her home sick; that’s why you caught me coming out. I’m going to her boarding-house to see her. Do you want to come?” Moody looked at him pityingly. “Not — not to doctor her, or anything, I just think you maybe shouldn’t... be alone?”

Somewhere in the fog, Gilbert was aware that this was endearing; that Moody was a good friend. A good friend who wanted to take him to the very place Anne lived... but Anne wouldn’t be there, she was here at the dance. What was he to do, anyway? He couldn’t very well travel back to Toronto tonight – the plan had always been to bunk with Moody after escorting the girls home.

“I’ll come,” Gilbert said, and so he did, walking beside Moody as they made their way through lamplit streets, every footstep bringing him further away from the girl he loved and the man she’d chosen instead. 

* * *

Diana stood, pensive, by Ruby's bedside. Her friend was paler than ever, and lay feverish in her bed now. Her lovely dress was discarded on the floor. For want of any other useful thing to do, Diana picked it up and folded it neatly over Ruby's desk chair. She was beginning to wish they'd brought Anne home with them after all; Anne usually seemed to know what to do at times like this.

For a while, there were no sounds in the room but the ticking of the mantle-clock, and Ruby’s laboured breathing. Then there came a soft thudding sound from outside, which would have caught Diana’s attention had Ruby not begun mumbling something: a name. Diana took the too-warm hand in hers. "Moody's not here, Ruby. We left him at the dance, remember? He's playing his music.”

It troubled Diana to see how much Ruby’s awareness had diminished. It had been her own decision to leave Moody with the band. But now she was asking for him, apparently in delirium.

“No,” said Ruby softly. “Here.”

Diana heard another tap against the window. Louder this time. She crossed the room, taking the small lamp from Ruby’s bedside cabinet. She gave a start when she saw a figure in the shadows below the window, and pulled back to open it.

“Diana?”

“Moody Spurgeon MacPherson!” Surprise overcame Diana for a moment. “What are you doing here?”

“Jane said you had taken Ruby home. I came to see her.”

“I can’t let you in,” Diana hissed. “Mrs Blackmore would hear.”

“I won’t come by the door,” Moody said, and there followed a series of scuttling sounds. Moody was actually scaling the wall to Ruby’s window! Would wonders never cease? Diana turned in amazement back to Ruby, who looked suddenly very calm and satisfied. 

“You weren’t talking like a mad thing after all,” Diana commented. “You heard him throw a stone.”

Ruby answered with her eyes. Diana was suitably chastened.

She felt a little of the tension go out of her. Perhaps things weren’t quite as bad as she’d feared. She stepped away from the window just in time for Moody to hoist himself through, far more graciously than she might have imagined. Was it possible that he’d put in some practice? How had Ruby not mentioned this before?

No sooner was Moody through the window than another pair of hands appeared on the sill, and Diana watched in utter bafflement as none other than Gilbert Blythe came over the threshold, hair tousled and tie slightly askew, as if he’d for some reason dressed up to come housebreaking with Moody.

“Gilbert!” Diana exclaimed. Questions flew through her mind, but it seemed almost too perfect that he should appear just when they needed some medical knowledge. “It’s—good to see you, and... well, I _know_ about Anne’s... letter... but please, would you take a look at Ruby? I’ve been so worried.”

“Of course.”

Had Diana been more herself, she might have wondered at his dull reaction to her mention of Anne - but as it was, she was just glad to see him attending to Ruby.

“How long has she been like this?” Gilbert asked, pressing two fingers against Ruby’s thin wrist.

“She’s – she’s been a little pale and tired for a few days,” Diana supplied. “But it’s only been so bad this evening.”

Fellow-feeling drew her closer to Moody, who looked stricken.“She’s in good hands now,” she told him quietly, and hoped it would be enough.

* * *

A while later, Ruby slept, calmed apparently by Moody’s presence as much as Gilbert’s expertise. Moody showed no intention of leaving her side. Diana, ever governed by propriety despite her claims, sat on Josie’s empty bed to act as chaperone.

The situation thus stilled for now, Gilbert wandered out of the room, his thoughts slowly catching up to him. He had advised that a doctor be sent for in the morning to make sure, but he did not think Ruby’s condition too serious. A fever like that, accompanied by coughing fits, might have been consumption - but thankfully her lungs seemed unaffected.

That settled, his mind was haunted by Anne once more. Diana had mentioned a letter, but he’d received none since the start of the week. In truth, ever since he’d had the mad idea of surprising Anne at her first college dance, he’d been so focused on getting ahead on reading – so she might not have occasion to scold him – that it had not occurred to him to wonder why she didn’t write. But Diana had said ‘I know about Anne’s letter’. _What_ letter? 

Why did this keep happening? What minor god of written correspondence had he and Anne angered, and why did it keep sending Diana Barry as its prophetess? Gilbert would give anything to have some explanation, written in Anne’s own hand. Even now. Especially now.

He was in her room before he knew what he was doing – knew which it would be, and which of the beds was hers, from her lavish descriptions and the familiar pen laid on the writing-desk. And there – as if in answer to an unwhispered prayer – lay a letter, folded but not pressed in half, presumably in some haste, and with his name picked out in Anne’s unmistakable hand.

He snatched it up, desperate – this was the letter Diana had referred to, the one that would explain it all.

 _My dearest Gilbert_ , he read. _I hardly deserve your forgiveness, but I must implore you to take me back. My dalliance with Royal Gardner was ill-conceived, merely an amusement that went too far. He is rich, and for a fleeting moment I wondered what life would be like if I were a woman of wealth. But I see now how foolish I was to risk your love in that flight of fancy!_

It unfolded like that all through – try as he might to see some hidden meaning behind it, some hope that it was a joke or an exercise in fantasy, he could find nothing. It had evidently been written to be believed. Gilbert’s mind boggled. How could any of this be?

He sat down heavily on Anne’s bed, faintly aware of the impropriety but not caring – was it impropriety, truly, to sit on her bed when she was not present, and when apparently he was not her suitor anymore?

He tried to take a feeble solace from the idea that the letter was a plea for forgiveness – she had used the phrase ‘sackcloth and ashes’ more than once – but it paled in comparison to the rest. Watching her dancing the White Sergeant with someone else had been bad enough, but now to have the confession in her own hand, it brought a sickening reality to it all. A coming together of the evidence that he couldn’t rearrange in his mind in more sympathetic terms.

He didn’t know how long he sat there. At one point, Diana came in, apparently to get something from her dresser. On seeing Gilbert’s expression she seemed a little surprised, which he found somewhat insulting.

“Gilbert – you did get Anne’s letter, didn’t you?” she asked.

He did not trust himself to speak, and so nodded mutely.

“Good,” Diana was evidently relieved. “The timing seemed so short, and I wondered... well, but that’s alright, then. And you understand why she had to do it?”

‘ _He is rich, and for a fleeting moment I wondered what life would be like if I were a woman of wealth_.’

No, he didn’t understand. But wounded as he was, it seemed wrong to tell Diana that before he spoke to Anne herself.

Diana seemed to have given up waiting for a response, but she gave him a motherly pat on the shoulder on her way out of the room. “It’s only for a short time, and then you’ll be back to normal,” she said. “I don’t think she even intended you to see her until it was over.”

Gilbert gave a bitter laugh at that, but Diana didn’t seem to notice. Frankly, Gilbert thought she might be a little more sympathetic. Diana had been extremely invested in him confessing his love for Anne, only weeks ago on the train. And now, all she could offer was the fact that Anne had not _meant_ for him to see her court another man?

It occurred to him that Diana might actually think he deserved it – that it somehow led back to Winnie, again; how he’d paraded her in front of Anne’s face at a time when he dared not hope she would care – but before he could formulate that into something to say aloud, she stopped in the doorway.

“Moody’s leaving,” she said. “Will you go with him? Anne would kill to see you, I know, but the other girls will be confused and it could spoil everything...”

Oh, she’d kill to see him, would she? Really?

“I’ll go,” said Gilbert abruptly, getting up. Anne’s letter was still in his hand, and he contemplated what to do with it. Diana thought he’d received it in the post, so she evidently thought Anne had mailed it. He was the intended recipient, so to take it was not exactly theft.

It was a ridiculous conundrum, and not one he was ready to grapple with after everything else that had already transpired. He stuffed the letter in his pocket, crumpling it carelessly as he’d never done with anything Anne had written him before. He passed Diana wordlessly, and stopped only to check that Ruby’s temperature had risen no further before heading for the window.

Moody, thank heavens, was quick to follow suit.

“Did you mean what you said?” he asked, once they were safely on the ground outside the girls’ boarding house. 

Gilbert could only look askance, pulled out of his thoughts with no context.

“About Ruby – you don’t think it’s serious?” 

“Oh.” They began walking, Gilbert following Moody’s lead. “No, but I do think a doctor should see her. If I’ve learnt anything in half a term of reading medicine, it’s that I haven’t learnt everything.” 

Moody nodded at the wisdom of this.

“Listen, Gilbert, about Anne—” he said, after a few moments.

“I’d rather not,” said Gilbert shortly.

“Alright.” Moody sounded relieved. Gilbert didn’t blame him. He’d have no idea what to say to a friend in this situation. He could only hope that sleep would take him, curled up on some spare surface in Moody’s room – he’d never been so exhausted in both mind and body.

When they did reach Moody’s lodgings, however, he found only Anne behind his eyelids: hair like fire, heart like ice. Cold eyes he barely recognized. Her hand in someone else’s. Sleep, when it came, was not peaceful. 

* * *

Diana was asleep when Anne arrived home, and so she stole across the room and undressed as quietly as she could. The night had been a success, if she said so herself – she and Roy had successfully taken everyone in, most importantly Philippa, that dangerously charming gossip. True, it had been bittersweet to pass such a milestone without Gilbert, but the play-acting had been a fine distraction.

She slipped into her nightgown, and leaned against her writing desk to pry off her dancing shoes. Feeling along the smooth wood-top, she frowned: the false letter she’d gleefully penned that morning was not there. It must have fallen down somewhere – she would need to find it tomorrow. It wouldn’t do for someone to discover it before the ruse had run its course, yet she was sure she’d hastily left it on display in the rush to prepare for the dance.

Had the night not been so late - or rather, the morning so early - she would have written Gilbert a real letter, as was usually her preference after an event. She liked to write it all out while it was fresh, the highs and lows of the day flowing out as naturally from her pen as they’d been lived. Just this once, she lit no lamp, and got into bed, composing an imaginary letter in her head. Somehow, Gilbert did not seem so far away tonight.


	5. a word of explanation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, folks! You may notice that Book Gilbert has shown up a little here. I don’t mind him, so I hope you don’t either. I just... I cannot bring myself to have him use the word “guy”; “take-notice kind of guy” be damned. He’s going to say “fellow” and he’s going to like it. 
> 
> Thank you so much for sticking with this little story. It’s been fun to write and I can barely believe I’m posting a Last Chapter. I give up on _everything_ , so it’s a rarity. 
> 
> Anyway... here goes!

Anne awoke at a reasonable time, despite only catching a few hours’ sleep. She’d improved greatly since the night of the newspaper heist, that was for sure. She sat up to find Diana already dressing, which was far more unusual.

“Morning,” Diana greeted her. “I’m going to check on Ruby. We’re still going to send for the doctor, although—oh, Anne!”

Anne blinked at her friend’s strange interruption of her own sentence. Diana scurried over and sat down on the edge of Anne’s bed. “You’ll never guess who’s here. It’s Gilbert!” 

“What?” Anne said, her eyes widening in disbelief and joy. “Here? In Charlottetown?”

“Here in this _room_ ,” Diana crowed, “Only of course you weren’t here, and we were all worried about Ruby. But he came with Moody to check on her, and don’t worry, I checked that he’d got your letter–”

Anne was astounded. “What on earth is he doing here?”

“I assume he wanted to see you! You’ll have to sneak about, but won’t that just add to the adventure?” 

Anne scrambled out of bed and began to set out clothes. “I’ll go at once... before the others are about. You can say I’ve gone to fetch the doctor.” The thought gave her pause. “What about Ruby, though - you never finished saying.”

Diana tried to look a little more solemn. “She had a fever, but Gilbert thought it might just be that. You might really fetch the doctor on your way to him – he’s gone to Moody’s lodgings.”

“I will,” Anne agreed. She lifted her wash-basin down from the top of her armoire. “And the doctor will set all our minds at rest. Well, perhaps not mine! What is Gilbert thinking, coming here – he’s missing lectures! If it were to take me to my first dance, I’d understand a little, but if he read the letter he’d know there was no hope of that...”

She stopped short. “The post must have been especially swift. It was supposed to arrive yesterday at the earliest, but to get here by evening he must have left on Friday...” She turned to face Diana. “You’re _quite_ sure he received the letter?”

“Yes.”

“Did you talk about what was in it?”

“I just – I asked if he understood why you’d done it.”

“And what did he say to that?”

“Well...” Diana was stumped by that. “He didn’t say much of anything. Truth be told, he looked rather miserable, but I s’pose I understand, if he was expecting to sneak a peek of you in your dress. Phil’s dress!”

“Yes, I should return it,” Anne mused, though half her thoughts were elsewhere. “I was in fear of marking it all evening, and I don’t want to be custodian of it a moment longer than necessary.” She frowned at the floor by her bed, feeling an odd sensation of something being missing - something she’d meant to look for this morning. Trust Gilbert Blythe, to knock all rational thought out of her head! Still, it was less of a nuisance nowadays. Now that she knew why she was so prone to it.

 _Because I love him,_ she thought merrily, _and he loves me, and he’s here!_

“I’ll take the dress with me,” she told Diana, returning to the present. “Three errands, then: the doctor for Ruby, the dress for Philippa, and Gilbert... for me.”

Diana smiled. “Just don’t get them mixed up – Doctor Ward won’t want the dress, and Philippa Gordon will faint dead away if you deliver Gilbert to her.”

Anne rolled her eyes. “Go, check on Ruby.”

Diana left obligingly, leaving Anne to get ready. She made quick work of it, and in record time she was on the doorstep, remembering with a thrill the day she had stood exactly here, primed to run home to Gilbert only to find he’d run first to her. 

Nothing so public today! It still tickled her that she’d kissed him – on the lips! – in front of Diana’s father, not to mention anyone else who happened to be passing. Today they would have to be much more discreet, or risk undoing it all. 

There was _somebody_ coming, though – two somebodies, in fact, and she recognised Moody when he raised an arm to point out the boarding house. From the looks of the older gentleman with him, Anne concluded that she’d been pipped to the post when it came to fetching the doctor. Well, so much the better - she could go directly to Gilbert, and pass Phil’s on the way home.

She greeted Moody as they came close, but found him rather cold. “Anne,” he nodded.

 _He must be so worried about Ruby,_ she thought to herself. 

“If you’re hoping to explain yourself to Gilbert, you’ll have to hurry,” Moody said curtly. “He’s leaving by the nine o’ clock train.”

Anne’s eyes widened, though she tried not to betray her alarm too much. “Thank you, Moody, but I’m just going to take this dress back to Miss Gordon,” she said, and hurried off as soon as they had passed. By the corner of the road she was running, one hand hoisting up the skirt she was wearing and the other holding the bundle of green satin to her side.

The train? Why was Gilbert rushing off without– without even seeing her? Surely he hadn’t only come to see Moody? Was it possible that he hadn’t really received the letter after all, but in that case, why had he told Diana—

The realisation hit Anne so hard that she had to stop running; but then she set off again faster than ever, her heart pounding.

 _The wrong letter._ The words thundered through her. _Gilbert read the wrong letter._

She missed her way to the station, once – stumbled upon turning around, pain flashing up from what was probably a rolled ankle but couldn’t be heeded, not now – and she arrived so dishevelled and dismayed that she might as well never have bothered to dress well or comb her hair. It didn’t matter. Anne had only one focus, her eyes darting wildly a around the platform in search of Gilbert. There was a clock hanging from the Charlottetown sign: the train was due in eleven minutes. He’d have to be there soon.

Finally, she saw him: a lone figure by the far entrance, stooping slightly lower than his usual height but unmistakable, incredible, wonderful, _terrible_. What must he think of her? Anne raced towards him, hoping that by some miracle she would stop running and suddenly know exactly where to start her explanation.

“Gilbert—” she rasped out, and felt as though a hand clamped suddenly around her heart. He looked at her as one might a ghost: disbelief and horror.

“Please, let me explain,” Anne said, forcing herself to meet his eyes, even though it was torture to see hurt she’d put there, worse even than the day of his father’s funeral – at least there, her poor choice of words had been only a tiny part of his distress. Today it was entirely her doing. “It’s all a complete misunderstanding, Gilbert.”

“I read your letter,” he said. The first time she had heard his voice since he’d left for Toronto, and it had to be like this: disappointed and worn out and hollow, like a thing hunted, realising it could run no further.

“You read the _wrong_ letter,” Anne said hurriedly, “That was only for the others – your letter, the one to explain everything, will be waiting for you in Toronto. Oh, I can’t bear what you must think of me, but none of it was real—”

“It looked real.”

“Listen, Gilbert, please. It was supposed to look real. Roy is – that is, Cole and Roy...” she threw a cautious glance around, but not many were about, and certainly nobody she recognised from the campus. “They’re in love. Of course, it’s a secret, but somebody saw them together, and I could only think – on the absolute spur of the moment, I said it was me, and not Cole. Even now, I don’t know how I was believed, but it worked, the disaster averted, and I went home and wrote it all down straight away, hoping you’d understand, but just by bad luck it was the week of the dance and we had to pretend to go together and I... I never dreamed it would come apart like this, Gilbert, I...”

At some point during this speech, and to her further dismay, tears had blurred Anne’s eyes, making it hard to speak and harder still to see anything. It was too much, it seemed: too much hinging on one story that sounded, even to her own ears, barely plausible. Too much to lose.

Through her hysteria, she suddenly heard an odd sound. A strange, musical sound, like far-off bells, except they were near, very near to her person, and growing louder. She wiped her eyes, scarcely daring to trust her ears. But it was true – Gilbert was _laughing_. Laughing as she’d never heard him laugh before – uproarious and unabashed.

“You mean – this was all – and so Diana meant –”

Anne managed to collect enough of herself to stop crying, but was too fearful still to join in any mirth. She simply stood and stared at Gilbert.

“I was a broken man!” he declared dramatically, laughter still in his voice. “I thought – well, I believed every word of that letter, as I do anything you write me, but all the time – oh, Anne...”

And off he went again. Despite herself, Anne felt a familiar bristling of her pride, feeling that he perhaps ought to stop guffawing like this, but still she kept her mouth shut. Let him have his relief. She certainly had hers, though she could not quite believe it.

Eventually he sobered. “Anne.” He reached out for her, and she slipped a hand in his, hesitant still. He tugged gently, pulled her closer. “Do you really mean that there was nothing – not even an ounce of truth in any of it? The way you looked at that fellow...”

“I just imagined he was you,” Anne blurted out. “Every single time... only he wasn’t anything close. You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.”

“Oh, I think I have.”

He reached up and lightly cleared her face of stray tears, then kissed her, soft at first to match the previous moments, then growing deeper and more desperate. 

When they parted enough to meet each other’s eyes, his gaze was unwavering, full of light. “That much,” murmured Gilbert. “That’s how much _I_ missed _you_ , at least.”

“I’m so sorry,” Anne said, still somber. “You’re wonderful to make it all alright again so quickly, but... you must have felt...”

He brought her close again, this time wrapping his arms all round her, resting his chin on top of her head. “Anne Shirley Cuthbert. Do you know why you’re the easiest person in the world to forgive?”

“No,” she mumbled from her place of ensconcement. “I don’t see how I could ever be that.”

“It’s because you’re always... whatever mess you get into, it’s always on behalf of someone else, and with the best of intentions. Do you think I could hold it against you, that you’re... that you’d protect a friend like this? If anything, it makes me...” He stopped, then began again. “Anne, you’ve _nothing_ to be sorry for. I only had to hear it from you. Just a word of explanation, that’s all I needed. All I’ll ever need.”

Anne pulled out of the embrace, reached up to kiss him again. Vaguely she remembered warning herself not to do this, where they could be seen, but the few scattered strangers on the platform seemed to be paying them no attention.

“If only you’d stayed in Toronto, where you belong,” she said, insincerely, “You’d have got my letter and everything would be alright.”

“Well, I did get a letter from you,” he pointed out. “What possessed you to write that other one, anyway?”

“It was for the others to find,” she said. “Silly, really... but I thought it might come to something a little like this, you coming for a visit without a tremendous amount of notice, so I was setting up a believable trail of clues for mine and Roy’s finishing and you and I taking up again... And so you see, all I could think about was when it would be over.”

He chuckled. “I’m going to treasure it always. Which I don’t generally do, with things that give me emotional crises.” He reached into his pocket, and pulled out the offending item. “Oh–” he added, returning it and feeling again for something else. “I brought.... no, it’s not here. I think I dropped it.”

“Dropped what?”

“Aha!” He produced something small and white, balanced on the middle of his palm. One solitary bell from a sprig of lily-of-the-valley. “Here’s all that’s left of your corsage.”

It was all Anne could do not to squeal out loud. “You brought me lily-of-the-valley?”

“That was the plan, anyway.”

Anne took it as one might a priceless pearl, held it cupped there in her hand. “You couldn’t show Roy up more if you tried. This is exactly what I wanted.”

“I had the strangest feeling it might be. Better than an _orchid_ , in any case.”

“You saw that?” She giggled. “And you still believed in the whole charade? I would _never_.”

He took the teasing as it was meant. “Of course... fooling around with another man is one thing, but wearing a hothouse flower to a dance? Out of the question.”

She smiled over the pain of it. On some level, he really had feared her capable of both. “I know you’re joking, as was I, but... I really would _never_. You know there’s nobody for me but you, don’t you?”

He folded her hand over the lily-bell, and brought it up to kiss her fingers. “I do now. I hoped it before, but the whole evening seemed to conspire against me. And, needless to say... there’s nobody but you for me, either.”

“Not needless,” she said. “Wonderful.” Anne sighed. “But pretty though those words are, this isn’t quite how I imagined our first reunion would be.”

“Isn’t it?” Gilbert grinned facetiously. “Then you clearly don’t have a very vivid imagination.”

She swatted at him. “You’ll take that back, Mr Blythe.”

“There,” he said in triumph. “Now you’re smiling properly. I couldn’t live with that rueful sort you were doing before.”

As he spoke, they began to hear the rumbling of an approaching train, and it quickly became so thunderous that any conversation was impossible. Anne, realising quickly that he must be on the train if he was to be back in time even for afternoon lectures tomorrow, decided to make use of what precious moments she had – and if he couldn’t hear her speak, she could at least make use of her tongue some other way. Gilbert, for his part, did not seem to object to her time management.

“You must go,” she said, once the train had pulled in. “Oh, I wish— but it’s no use wishing. Next time, there won’t be any misunderstanding.”

Gilbert sighed, melodramatically. “Don’t tempt fate, please. Misunderstandings seek us out.”

“They do! It’s not our fault.”

“No, not at all.” The train whistle rent the air. Gilbert picked up his case in one hand and kept hold of Anne’s with the other. “If I believed in that sort of thing, I’d say Fate was jealous.”

“What sort of thing _do_ you believe in?” Anne asked, knowing full well that the fleeting seconds they had were not sufficient for the broaching of such a subject, but grasping for it anyway, keen to pack an eternity into the last moments.

“A very specific sort,” Gilbert said, “And I’ll tell you about it in the letter I’ll be writing on the train.” He squeezed her hand. “Goodbye, pen pal.”

One last kiss for the parting, for the miles and the months. “Goodbye, Gil.”

She watched while the train pulled out, her heart full and yet light.

Inside the departing carriage, Gilbert waved until she was just a spec of blue and amber, then rummaged in his case for pen and paper.

 _Dear Anne_ , he wrote. _I think it best not to tell Lady Medicine, but these days the only thing I really believe in is you._

* * *

“Didn’t you have the most splendid time?” Philippa gushed, taking the dress from Anne and folding it over the back of a chair. “You looked like a fairytale queen. I don’t know why I’m taking this dress back, truly – I’ll never wear it as you did. Here, Anne. Just adopt it, would you?”

“Oh... are you—”

“Yes, I’m very sure. Well, and now I’ve made yours a wasted journey, which is a pity, but since you’re here, you’ll stay for a chat, of course. I’m glad you’ve come. I need to pick your brain.”

Anne obediently sat, glad to rest her sore ankle, which had made itself known again the moment Gilbert had faded from her sight. She looked expectantly at Philippa, delicately ignoring the unease she felt at the idea of reprising the last time the girl had needed her opinion on something.

“As you know,” said Phil, flouncing down onto her bed, “I came to the dance with two beaux. But I... there was somebody else I caught a glimpse of, someone I’ve never seen around the campus. And now I have the stupidest, giddiest feeling in my head that just will not go away. Don’t laugh at me; I know I am stupid and giddy at the best of times, but this is different.”

Far from laughing, Anne was grimly considering the fact that Gilbert must have been at the dance, had never been to campus for Phil to see, and objectively had the sort of face that could make people stupid and giddy, even if they tried their very best not to be, for years. _Let it not be him_ , she thought, smoothing her finger over the petals of the lily.

“But I don’t know how... oh, it’s all such a mess.” Philippa buried her head in her hands. Then all at once, she looked up. “Anne, how did you know you wanted to try on men’s trousers? When did the thought come about?”

Anne was baffled by the sudden change of subject. “I couldn’t say,” she said honestly.

Phil sighed. “In strictest confidence, Anne: I... well, just because you’d have me believe Cole McKenzie isn’t _himself_ , might not mean... I was wondering if you might know... the girl he brought with him, Jo Blake... might she...?”

The hope was clear in her face, clear as a day dawning. Anne’s mouth fell open. 

“I think I’ve made a terrible mistake,” she said, everything falling into quite a different place.   
  



End file.
